Part Two: The Nitrams
Chapter One: The Closet is Deep
Thin walls made for uncomfortable confrontation. That was the dilemma Tavros found himself in when, for the better part of an afternoon he could hear his brother practicing a speech in the mirror on the other side of the bedroom wall.
"Mom, Dad… I… I'm bisexual," Rufioh's voice carried through both bedrooms. Tavros didn't want to be eavesdropping, but he couldn't really help it. A door slammed, and Tavros wheeled out of his room a little ways to find Rufioh pacing in the hallway. "This is a bad plan. Bad plan."
"Rufioh? Is everything… okay?" Tavros asked, scooting forward a little bit. Rufioh jumped a bit, turning to face his brother.
"O-oh, yeah, fine. I'm uh… just… how much of that did you hear?"
"Are you… uhm. Were you practicing coming out?"
Rufioh sighed. "Yeah. Yep, guess I was. But… I don't think I'm ready to. S'pose I'm out to you now, though, huh…" he muttered.
"I don't think it's a big deal. You're still the same person. You're still my brother. You should tell Mom and Dad."
Rufioh ran a hand through his red-tinted spikes. "I know I should. I'm just afraid, is all."
"They won't, um, look at you in a different way."
Rufioh stepped behind his brother's wheelchair, and pushed him into the main family room. "I can just hear mom- 'you've never even dated a guy. How would you know-' blah blah blah. Like they'd even know…"
Tavros shrugged. "It'll be fine."
"Tav, I'm just- ugh, I'm just trying to work up the courage to say something. Not that they'd be around when I do get the nerve." At that moment, the boys head their garage door open and the car pull in. "Don't say anything, Tav. Promise me you won't."
Tavros just nodded at Rufioh as their parents came into the door, arms full of grocery bags.
"Hi!" Rufioh said through a forced smile.
"Hey boys," Samuel answered. "Rufioh, go help your mother unload the rest of the car." Rufioh nodded and went outside, leaving Tavros looking at his father with a shy smile. "Something wrong, Tav?"
"No! No."
"Huh."
The four Nitrams had a family dinner that night that consisted mostly of Tavros faking his composure extraordinarily well and Rufioh waiting for an opening to that conversation, yet quietly hoping there wouldn't be one.
"School starts tomorrow," Magnolia noted. "You boys ready?"
"Of course, Mom," Rufioh murmured.
"I'm actually a bit nervous, um, to start high school," Tavros stuttered.
"Aw, don't be nervous," Sam said, with a bit of a chuckle.
"I… um… you're right. I'm sure I'll be fine."
"Good, good."
A silence settled around the dinner table until Sam cleared his throat, clearly getting ready to announce something. "We got a call earlier about some abandoned dogs," he said, "and your mother and I have to drive out early tomorrow morning and see what's going on with that."
"You're leaving?" Tavros asked. "You guys just got back last week."
"I know. It won't take long."
"In the meantime, Mr. Boxcars will be here to help you guys out," Magnolia said with a smile. Rufioh's face fell into a scowl.
"Mom, I'm 17 years old- do we really need a- a babysitter?" he complained.
"Really? You want to drive everywhere, haul his chair around, run the errands? Your job when we're out of town is to look out for your brother at school."
"I just mean, do you think I'm so irresponsible that I wouldn't do all those things? Have some faith; I'm practically an adult."
"Tink… maybe we should let the boys stay on their own this time," Sam tried to reason with her.
"No!"
"Mom, I-"
"It's not you I'm worried about, Rufioh." Magnolia took a deep breath. "I just… would feel better if there was someone here to keep an eye on you. Mr. Boxcars will be here in the morning."
"But-"
"No, Rufioh! That's the end of the discussion," she said, very curtly, and she stood up and started to clear the dishes from the table. Rufioh groaned and slunk off into his room, a door not quite slamming behind him. Tavros sighed and wheeled himself away to his own room. He was nervous about school starting, but it wasn't so much school itself that made him nervous. It was the prospect of seeing Vriska, every day. He liked her… kind of.
Tavros's phone went off. Pesterchum.
arachnidsGrip [AG] began pestering adiosToreador
AG: Hey, toreadum8ass.
AG: Let's go for a walk.
AT: Uhhhhhh
AG: I mean, I'll push your stupid chair. I just need to get out of my house.
AT: Ok, i guess thats fine
AT: Cool, I'm outside.
Tavros rolled his eyes, but he grabbed a light coat and wheeled himself outside anyway, and Vriska was, in fact, waiting for him.
"Hey, loser," she said, smiling. A smile was a good sign. Maybe she wouldn't be crazy that night. Despite the fact that she'd been bullying him for years, Tavros was inexplicably attracted to Vriska. Maybe it was the fact that she was quite attractive, even with the bandages that covered her permanently-closed left eye, and prosthetic arm, or maybe it was the fact that she oozed confidence and that was something Tavros admired about her. He smiled back.
"Hey Vriska," he said, wheeling up next to her. "You… dyed your hair?"
"Yeah, isn't it just the coolest?" Vriska asked, flipping a strand of hair over her shoulder. She was a natural blonde, but the ends were now a cerulean blue, almost matching the one eye remaining behind her round-framed glasses. Vriska walked beside Tavros, letting him push his own chair as they went down the street towards a park.
"So… you ready? For, uh, school tomorrow, I mean," Tavros asked. Vriska's smile dropped to a frown.
"School starts tomorrow?" she asked with a panic in her voice.
"Yeah. You didn't know?"
"No, my mom is… so clueless. And Aranea has been too wrapped up in her own business to keep me in the loop on anything. Such a fucking bookworm," Vriska muttered. "Shit! I can't believe I forgot!"
"W- um, I have some extra… notebooks and… stuff. Maybe you could use it until you can go supply-shopping."
"Don't be stupid, Tavros. I'm not looking for charity," Vriska sneered. "I'll take care of it myself."
"I was only trying to help."
"Well, maybe I don't need your help."
"If you say so," Tavros muttered. Vriska just rolled her eyes at him. A slick quietness settled between them, Vriska crumpling her face as she thought of a way to break the silence. She glanced over at Tavros for a moment.
"Brr, it's getting chilly out," she said surreptitiously.
"Yeah… do you wanna head home?"
"No."
"Uh…Okay…"
Vriska scowled. "I said I'm cold, numbnuts."
"Uhh…"
"Are you going to offer me your coat or not?"
"Oh! Oh, yeah, here," Tavros answered. He started to take his sweater off, leaning forward in his chair as he did so. The wheelchair slid underneath him, slid until it wasn't underneath him, and Tavros was stomach-down on the ground, his sweater halfway off. Vriska couldn't help but laugh.
"Tavros, that was just. So pathetic. Hahaha, you look so sad right now!"
"You could, uh, help me up?" Tavros muttered, propping himself up on his elbows. It was unfortunate he had a tendency to speak fairly quietly. Vriska just kept giggling as he crawled close enough to his chair to pull himself up. He pulled his sweater sleeve back on and straightened himself out.
"Wow, toreadork, that's some mad upper-body strength you got." Tavros glanced at Vriska.
"Well, it is a manual chair. I mean, I, uh, spend a lot of time pushing my own weight around."
Vriska gave a light chuckle. "You just look like you have the muscle density of a twig." Tavros frowned at her.
"Maybe we should just head back," Tavros suggested. Vriska let out a loud groan.
"Yeahhhhhhhh. You're not wrong. I just don't want to go back home." She stood behind Tavros then, and started pushing his chair, heading back down the street to his house.
"Why do you want to avoid your house so badly?" he asked. Vriska scoffed.
"Have you met my mom? Remember how 'torn up' she was when I was in the hospital? That she didn't even want to discuss payment options for a fake eye? She just let them sew it up! And she's been acting even screwier than usual lately. My aunt Snowman has been bugging her out."
"Snowman?"
"I don't even know her real name! God my family is so fuckin' weird. You're lucky, Tavros, with your dumb nuclear family."
Tavros sighed. "No family is perfect."
"Yeah, well, better than mine. Ugh. I should probably go, though."
"Okay. Night, Vriska."
"Psh, see you later, you fucking dweeb." Vriska shook her head, smiling, then walked off the porch and into the night. Tavros sighed before going inside for bed.
Everything was a bigger hassle than it should be for Tavros, because of the chair. The Nitrams had slowly been changing the structure of the house to be more wheelchair-friendly, adding ramps and widening doorways, to make things easier on Tavros, but there were still daily activities that would take him longer, and those things would never change. Like changing his clothes. Tavros could do it himself, but it often took close to 5 minutes to get pants on. Getting in to bed was also a challenge. Tavros frowned as he pulled his bed covers back. That stupid plastic sheet. It was almost mocking him. Well, he shrugged it off, there was nothing to do about it. Tavros went to bed, hoping school the next day didn't drag him down.